Panel completes child-separation policy appraisal
Hundreds of youths, parents may never be reunited, it says
WASHINGTON — A U.S. House committee has produced what it calls the “first complete narrative” of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that separated thousands of migrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border, with committee Democrats warning that “hundreds” of children might never be reunited with their parents as a result of the since-rescinded policy.
The Democratic majority staff of the House Judiciary Committee released the findings in a lengthy report Thursday morning after a nearly two-year investigation. It said it found “reckless incompetence and intentional cruelty” within the program.
The report found what largely already has been revealed publicly: That the Trump administration secretly planned the family separations as a tactic aimed at deterring migrants from seeking asylum in the United States amid fears that their children might be taken from them.
The policy particularly targeted Central American families that were streaming to the U.S. southern border, and the Trump administration ran a pilot program in El Paso in 2017 before expanding it in 2018 despite concerns that there was no orderly way to track or monitor the children and their families once they were pulled apart.
Committee Democrats also reported that they found that more than 850 complaints about family separations were filed with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, including allegations of mistreatment involving children.
Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., ordered the inquiry in January 2019, after Democrats took control of the House. Many of the key details already have been disclosed in government watchdog reports, news stories and in an ongoing federal lawsuit that ordered the families to be reunited. But the report said it also obtained previously undisclosed documents such as memos and emails that offered a fuller timeline of a “sad chapter” in American history.
“As a result of this dark chapter in our nation’s history, hundreds of migrant children may never be reunited with their parents,” the report concluded. “We remain committed to holding the Trump Administration accountable.”
The committee said the Department of Health and Human Services, which was responsible for housing the children in shelters, was the only agency that “meaningfully cooperated” with its investigation, and that the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department did not.
Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and Health and Humans Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday. The committee staff said it did not plan to share the report with the agencies until Thursday morning.
The committee released the report a week after advocates for immigrants told a federal judge overseeing the reunification process — which is mostly completed — that they have not been able to reach the parents of 545 children to learn if they have had the opportunity to get their children back. Lawyers estimate that as many as 5,400 children were taken from their parents under the government’s separation program. More than half were split up during the official “zero tolerance” policy in 2018.
U.S. government officials have said some parents have indicated that they do not want to claim their children — who are staying with sponsors or other family members in the United States — because it could mean the children would be forced to leave the country.
“DHS has taken every step to facilitate the reunification of these families where the parents wanted such reunification to occur,” Homeland Security spokesman Chase Jennings said last week.
Past administrations have also separated migrant children from their parents at the border, such as in emergencies when the parent is considered a danger to the child.
The House committee found that the Trump administration began planning the separations as early as February 2017, when then Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan held a meeting with Health and Human Services officials “in which the idea of family separation was raised.” McAleenan later said he regretted the family separation policy.
By March 2017, the number of children the U.S. government had separated from their families and was sending to Health and Human Services custody was increasing. In July 2017, the report said, the Trump administration was secretly running a pilot program that separated families in the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector. Hundreds were split up during that early phase of the program, the committee found.
During the pilot program, officials realized that they did not have a quick and orderly system to reunite the separated families. But the committee found that the Trump administration plowed ahead with its “zero tolerance” policy in May 2018 anyway.
Under “zero tolerance,” border agents sent parents to criminal court to face prosecution for crossing the border illegally, and then to immigration detention for possible deportation. Their children were scattered in shelters nationwide.
Trump ended the separations in June 2018 but reuniting most of them took weeks or months, and in some cases, is still ongoing.
Border apprehensions sank to near-historic lows during Trump’s first few months in office, but rose steadily in fiscal 2018 and surged in fiscal 2019 as smugglers realized that the government was unable to stop the flood of “family units” crossing the border because of legal limits on how long the U.S. government can detain children.